Totally Random Trivia - 2025

4.  Harlem

Posted by: @zwak

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Questions for
Friday, August 8, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in Monday’s email. 

1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Last Thursday, the Minnesota Twins traded eight players on their 26-man roster. Name as many of those eight players as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.

2. What comic strip character, played by Shelley Duvall in a 1980 movie, was once described by her boyfriend as being “a perfect 19-19-19”?

3. What brand of juice boxes were advertised extensively on the PBS show “Arthur,” using the slogan “100% Juice for 100% Kids”?

4. Langston Hughes’ 1925 poem “The Weary Blues” describes an evening on Lenox Avenue in what East Coast neighborhood?

5. Today is August 8. On this day in 2004, unsuspecting passengers enjoying a Chicago riverboat tour had almost 800 pounds of human waste dumped on them from above. The culprit was a tour bus driver for what band?

Posted by: @the-rube

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2. Olive Oyl

3. Juicy Juice

5. Dave Matthews Band

1. It's been a week, but I'll give it a shot.  Danny Coloumbe, TY France, Harrison Bader, Louie Varland, Brock Stewart, Carlos Correa, Willi Castro, and Griffin Jax.  Duran, Paddack, and Dobnack were traded up the days leading up to the deadline.

Answers to Friday, August 8, 2025

1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Last Thursday, the Minnesota Twins traded eight players on their 26-man roster. Name as many of those eight players as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.

Harrison Bader, Willi Castro, Carlos Correa, Danny Coulombe, Ty France, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart, Louis Varland
(Jhoan Duran and Chris Paddack were traded earlier in the week)

2. What comic strip character, played by Shelley Duvall in a 1980 movie, was once described by her boyfriend as being “a perfect 19-19-19”?

Olive Oyl
(from “Popeye”)

3. What brand of juice boxes were advertised extensively on the PBS show “Arthur,” using the slogan “100% Juice for 100% Kids”?

Juicy Juice

4. Langston Hughes’ 1925 poem “The Weary Blues” describes an evening on Lenox Avenue in what East Coast neighborhood?

Harlem

5. Today is August 8. On this day in 2004, unsuspecting passengers enjoying a Chicago riverboat tour had almost 800 pounds of human waste dumped on them from above. The culprit was a tour bus driver for what “Crash Into Me” band?

Dave Matthews Band

Questions for
Monday, August 11, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email. 

1. In 1901, entomologist Charles W. Woodworth identified Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for genetic research. This species is more commonly known as what household pest?  

2. If you look at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, you’ll find a broken… what?

3. Actor Fay Wray wrote a memoir in 1989 titled “On the Other Hand.” She’s most famous for playing a character named Ann Darrow in what 1933 film?  

4. Last week, the governor of Illinois signed the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act, which prohibits anyone from using generative-AI tools like ChatGPT as a replacement for what kind of medical treatment?

5. If your surname ends in the letters “-nen,” there’s a good chance you’re from which European country, where an estimated one-third of all surnames end this way?

2. A broken chain

5. Finland

4) Psychological services

1 Fruit Fly

3. King Kong

Answers to Monday, August 11, 2025

1. In 1901, entomologist Charles W. Woodworth identified Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism for genetic research. This species is more commonly known as what household pest?

Fruit fly

2. If you look at the feet of the Statue of Liberty, you’ll find a broken… what?

Chain (and shackle)

3. Actor Fay Wray wrote a memoir in 1989 titled “On the Other Hand.” She’s most famous for playing a character named Ann Darrow in what 1933 film?

“King Kong”

4. Last week, the governor of Illinois signed the Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act, which prohibits anyone from using generative-AI tools like ChatGPT as a replacement for what kind of medical treatment?

Therapy

5. If your surname ends in the letters “-nen,” there’s a good chance you’re from which European country, where an estimated one-third of all surnames end this way?

Finland

Questions for
Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email. 

1. What word, commonly heard on ships or in Keebler cookie factories, was Alexander Graham Bell’s preference for how the telephone should be answered?

2. Almost all of the crew go down with the ship when (spoiler alert!) Moby Dick sinks the Pequod. Who is the only character to survive?

3. “The Road” author Charles McCarthy changed his first name to avoid confusion with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy. He changed it to one of Irish origin. What is the first name he is best known by?

4. What “Close to You” and “We've Only Just Begun” vocalist and drummer adopted the nickname “Lead Sister” in the 1970s, after a foreign journalist mistranslated “lead singer” in an interview?

5. What actor was nominated for two acting Oscars in 1993, when he won Best Actor for “Scent of a Woman” and lost Best Supporting Actor for “Glengarry Glen Ross”?

5 Al Pacino 

3.  Cormac

4.  Karen Carpenter

1. Ahoy!

2. Ishmael

The Road may be the most disturbing book/movie I’ve ever seen.  The movie is spot on if you want to save the time.  

Answers to Tuesday, August 12, 2025

1. What word, commonly heard on ships or in Keebler cookie factories, was Alexander Graham Bell’s preference for how the telephone should be answered?

“Ahoy”

2. Almost all of the crew go down with the ship when (spoiler alert!) Moby Dick sinks the Pequod. Who is the only character to survive?

Ishmael

3. “The Road” author Charles McCarthy changed his first name to avoid confusion with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy, Charlie McCarthy. He changed it to one of Irish origin. What is the first name he is best known by?

Cormac

4. What “Close to You” and “We've Only Just Begun” vocalist and drummer adopted the nickname “Lead Sister” in the 1970s, after a foreign journalist mistranslated “lead singer” in an interview?

Karen Carpenter

5. What actor was nominated for two acting Oscars in 1993, when he won Best Actor for “Scent of a Woman” and lost Best Supporting Actor for “Glengarry Glen Ross”?

Al Pacino

Questions for
Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email. 

1. Manchester City has won the Premier League six times in the last 10 years. The team's annual dominance makes it a little ironic that its anthem is what popular 1934 song, whose titular object only occurs once every three years, on average?

2. Kristen Stewart played Diana, Princess of Wales at a point when her marriage to Prince Charles was going awry, in what 2021 film?

3. In addition to selling more than 95 million records worldwide, what Colombian singer has placed on Forbes’ list of the world’s 100 most powerful women and Fortune’s list of the world’s greatest leaders?

4. The Hollywood sign got a temporary makeover in 1987, when students draped it to display the nickname of what Pasadena university that has given us 47 Nobel laureates, including Richard Feynman and Linus Pauling?

5. “Adoration of the Earth” and “The Sacrifice” are the two acts of what scandalous-in-its-time ballet by Igor Stravinsky?

4 Caltech

1. Blue Moon

3) Shakira

4) West Beverly… 😉

5. The Rite of Spring

Answers to Wednesday, August 13, 2025

1. Manchester City has won the Premier League six times in the last 10 years. The team's annual dominance makes it a little ironic that its anthem is what popular 1934 song, whose titular object only occurs once every three years, on average?

“Blue Moon”

2. Kristen Stewart played Diana, Princess of Wales at a point when her marriage to Prince Charles was going awry, in what 2021 film?

“Spencer”

3. In addition to selling more than 95 million records worldwide, what Colombian singer has placed on Forbes’ list of the world’s 100 most powerful women and Fortune’s list of the world’s greatest leaders?

Shakira

4. The Hollywood sign got a temporary makeover in 1987, when students draped it to display the nickname of what Pasadena university that has given us 47 Nobel laureates, including Richard Feynman and Linus Pauling?

Caltech (California Institute of Technology)

5. “Adoration of the Earth” and “The Sacrifice” are the two acts of what scandalous-in-its-time ballet by Igor Stravinsky?

“The Rite of Spring”

Questions for
Theme Thursday, August 14, 2025

What Is Life?: Five deep questions about the meaning of “life.”

Answers in tomorrow’s email.

1. “Life” is the title of the 2010 memoir by what legendary English rock and roll guitarist, who admitted in the book that he once snorted a small portion of his own father’s ashes?

2. Life is a board game. What company first produced it?

3. Life is a magazine. It was founded in 1883 as a humor magazine, but became a major weekly news magazine in 1936 after a man named Henry Luce bought it. What other magazine did Henry Luce co-found in 1923?

4. Life is a cereal. What company produces it?

5. “Life” is the title of a 1999 movie starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. It was their second film together. The first was what 1992 movie, which critics tossed aside at the time, but which has since returned as a bona fide cult classic of the rom-com genre?

3 Time

4 Quaker Oats

1.  Keith Richards....legend!

5. Boomerang

2. Milton Bradley

Answers to Thursday, August 14, 2025

What Is Life?: Five deep questions about the meaning of “life.”

1. “Life” is the title of the 2010 memoir by what legendary English rock and roll guitarist, who admitted in the book that he once snorted a small portion of his own father’s ashes?

Keith Richards

2. Life is a board game. What company first produced it?

Milton Bradley

3. Life is a magazine. It was founded in 1883 as a humor magazine, but became a major weekly news magazine in 1936 after a man named Henry Luce bought it. What other magazine did Henry Luce co-found in 1923?

Time

4. Life is a cereal. What company produces it?

Quaker

5. “Life” is the title of a 1999 movie starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. It was their second film together. The first was what 1992 movie, which critics tossed aside at the time, but which has since returned as a bona fide cult classic of the rom-com genre?

“Boomerang”

Questions for
Friday, August 15, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in Monday’s email. 

1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Director Baz Luhrmann has directed six movies. Name as many of those films as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.

2. Generally speaking, the biggest difference between a pool table and a billiards table is that a billiards table does not have… what?

3. What Nobel Prize winner worked as a fiction editor for Random House before breaking through as a novelist with her 1970 book “The Bluest Eye”?

4. What deciduous tree is the source of a precursor to aspirin, as well as the name of a 1988 film starring Warwick Davis?

5. Today is August 15. On this day in 1965, the Beatles played a concert at Shea Stadium, marking the first time a rock band headlined a stadium in America. At the time, Shea Stadium was home to which MLB team?
 

2. Pockets

5. New York Mets

4 Willow 

1. Strictly Ballroom (one of my favorites), Elvis

1) Moulin Rouge, The Great Gadsby and Romeo and Juliet.  Don’t know the sixth.

1. Australia

3. Toni Morrison

Answers to Friday, August 15, 2025

1. Quit While You’re Ahead: Director Baz Luhrmann has directed six movies. Name as many of those films as you can for one point each. Zero points total if you get any incorrect.

“Strictly Ballroom,” “Romeo + Juliet,” “Moulin Rouge,” “Australia,” “The Great Gatsby,” “Elvis”

2. Generally speaking, the biggest difference between a pool table and a billiards table is that a billiards table does not have… what?

Pockets

3. What Nobel Prize winner worked as a fiction editor for Random House before breaking through as a novelist with her 1970 book “The Bluest Eye”?

Toni Morrison

4. What deciduous tree is the source of a precursor to aspirin, as well as the name of a 1988 film starring Warwick Davis?

Willow

5. Today is August 15. On this day in 1965, the Beatles played a concert at Shea Stadium, marking the first time a rock band headlined a stadium in America. At the time, Shea Stadium was home to which MLB team?

New York Mets

Questions for
Monday, August 18, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email. 

1. A dowager countess from “Downton Abbey,” one of three unfortunate Lemony Snicket protagonists, and the dragon-riding main character of the Empyrean books all share what colorful name?

2. Is a meridian a line of longitude or of latitude?

3. The only woman to be named the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People magazine more than twice has won five times, most recently in 2017. Name that actor.

4. Chip the Wolf is a General Mills mascot whose signature move is to howl the name of what cereal?

5.  A person who specializes in shoeing horses has a job whose name derives from the Latin for “iron.” What is that job called?

3. Julia Roberts

2.  Longitude 

5) Farrier

5. Farrier

4. Cookie Crisp

1. Violet

Posted by: @zwak

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5.  A person who specializes in shoeing horses has a job whose name derives from the Latin for “iron.” What is that job called?

Ive never shod a horse. Though seen it done. Though watching cow get their hoofs cleaned is more fun. Especially when you have to shave the hoof to get a foreign object out. 

Posted by: @gator

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Posted by: @zwak

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5.  A person who specializes in shoeing horses has a job whose name derives from the Latin for “iron.” What is that job called?

Ive never shod a horse. Though seen it done. Though watching cow get their hoofs cleaned is more fun. Especially when you have to shave the hoof to get a foreign object out. 

 

We know someone who does cow hoof trimming. Has a whole machine that the cow goes into and tips them on their side so he can more easily and safely get at their feet. 
I’ve had some limited experience working with both horse and cattle feet.  Kudos to the folks who can do it, and are good at it.  It’s backbreaking work, quite literally.  

Answers to Monday, August 18, 2025

1. A dowager countess from “Downton Abbey,” one of three unfortunate Lemony Snicket protagonists, and the dragon-riding main character of the Empyrean books all share what colorful name?

Violet
(Violet Crawley, Violet Baudelaire, and Violet Sorrengail, respectively — and check out our “Fourth Wing” trivia, happening all month long!)

2. Is a meridian a line of longitude or of latitude?

Longitude

3. The only woman to be named the “World’s Most Beautiful Woman” by People magazine more than twice has won five times, most recently in 2017. Name that actor.

Julia Roberts

4. Chip the Wolf is a General Mills mascot whose signature move is to howl the name of what cereal?

Cookie Crisp

5.  A person who specializes in shoeing horses has a job whose name derives from the Latin for “iron.” What is that job called?

Farrier
 

Questions for
Tuesday, August 19, 2025

Five questions to wake up your noodle. Answers in tomorrow’s email. 

1. The Chinese government has produced more than 500 million Flying Pigeons, making it the single most popular vehicle on the planet. What type of vehicle is the Flying Pigeon?

2. What “Only Murders in the Building” star recorded the theme song for the Disney Channel series “Wizards of Waverly Place” in 2007, six years before she topped the charts with her album “Stars Dance”?

3. A 1982 U.S. postage stamp of Franklin D. Roosevelt was the last one to contain a depiction of what item, otherwise removed from photographs of Robert Johnson, Jackson Pollock, and James Dean that were turned into stamps?

4. A rowing crew can consist of two to eight rowers, plus an additional person who sits facing the rowers, setting the pace and giving commands. What is the title of this additional person?  

5. Before Barack Obama became the first Black president of the United States, he had already been the first Black president of an influential publication dating back to 1887 from what university?

3 I presume cigarette

4 Coxswain 

2. Selena Gomez

5) Harvard?